•
Rating:
And I remember it well: I was thirteen years old and didn't even have ten records. I walked around with a 90-minute cassette evenly split between Nevermind and some Led Zeppelin songs that I had transferred from the first CD of Remasters. I would go to practice with the walkman attached to my belt and mow people down with Robert Plant singing Immigrant Song in my head... Ahahahhhh
One day Marco's cousin - a cool guy, one who had just returned from London - recorded Houdini and some Nirvana songs on cassette that we had never heard before. We'd sit there, in front of the stereo, in religious silence, and always in a religious atmosphere, neither of us would admit that we couldn't understand those damn Melvins. At the slightest doubt, you were out. They were the favorite band of Nirvana's singer, so we had to like them. The cassette full of exotic and esoteric songs had no titles, but there was a song - the third on side A - that always struck us. We called it "Dimension Seven" and spent entire afternoons wondering why such a beautiful song wasn't on the album. Answers were not forthcoming, and neither was a reason. It took a year or so to discover that the song was called "D-7" and that it wasn't by Nirvana. The idea that a song like that - a like that explains itself - was neither by Nirvana nor Led Zeppelin first shattered our toy-filled world and then our wallets, opening the door to the search, the love for everything we still didn't know. Who were these Wipers, where did they come from, what did they have to do with Nirvana? Nobody knew anything, we were groping in the dark
"Is It Real?" I found one day by chance. I was walking through the streets of Mitte with the asphalt still wet from a silent summer rain. I went into this shop, started browsing through the vinyls, and this horrible yellow cover with Wipers written on top appeared. It didn't take two seconds to decide to buy it. I took it out of the paper bag and with my fingers on the cellophane turned it: "D-7" among the songs. Relief!
"Is It Real?", released in 1980, is a Power Pop/Punk'n Roll mix that sticks from the first listen. The guitar fury meets the straightforward rhythmic section, with effective melodies that imprint in the mind. A blend so personal that it never left the streets of Portland and was looked upon with suspicion by the "kids", actors and factors of collective subjectivism, guilty of being "too non-canonically Punk." Greg Sage's expectations of being important were completely disillusioned.
"Youth of America" (1981, Park Avenue) marches on the avenue of "too ahead for these times". The Punk, the Power Pop that frontally crash into psychedelia. The debris rolling on the asphalt is your shattered eardrums. The songs double in length, multiply instruments and paths to follow until the concluding "Youth of America" which will brand future generations with a text - Youth of America/Is living in the jungle/Fighting for survival/But there's no place to go - which, stripped of prose, leaves nothing more to poetry.
"Over the Edge" from 1983 inaugurates their opening to post-Punk. The guitar becomes clean, the drums cavernous, and the melodies begin to be not just melodies, but trenches where you lose yourself without seeing the sun anymore. Depressed sounds without losing rhythm and the inclination to Rock that Greg Sage conserves naturally. Instinct, strong and virulent instinct that cannot be controlled. Or at least not completely.
"Wipers Box Set" - which contains, besides the albums ("Is It Real?", "Youth of America", and "Over the Edge"), in addition to the usual handful of demo versions of songs already present on the records, two seven-inch singles ("Alien Boy" and "Romeo") ...it's the sum that makes the total - was printed in 2001 by Zeno Records of Phoenix founded by Greg Sage himself who knew how to match horrible covers with splendid, lively records that seem at least ten years ahead of their contemporaries.
The Wipers are probably your favorite band's favorite band, and the shirts that J Mascis wears in every interview are proof of that. A second proof is the covers by the Nirvana, the Melvins, the Nation of Ulysses, or Thurston Moore. In short, independence. Enough, independence. Forget your usual suppliers... find it on your own, the stuff... and at the source that does you good. The Wipers are your favorite band; you just don't know it yet.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Return of the Rat (02:38)
You better watch out
You better beware
They're coming from all sides of the country
You better beware
Return of the rat(x3)
No, no, no, no!
Return of the rat(x3)
No, no, no, no!
No, no ....
You better confess
You had better confess
You start to confess and see them through it
You better confess
Return of the rat(x6)
No, no, no, no!(x8)
You better watch out
You better beware
They're coming from all sides of the country
You better beware
Return of the rat(x3)
No, no, no, no!
Return of the rat(x3)
No, no, no, no!(x2)
02 Mystery (01:47)
You think I'm retrospective
Of someone you used to know
I think it's indecision
That leaves us such a long way to go
But you say it's not that way
Try to make amends so it will never end
You don't care about it, you don't care about it
You don't care about it, you don't care about it
but can't you see, it's a mystery
I've always tried to wonder
How it must feel to be real
In one door out the other undercover
Do you think it shows
But you say it's not that way
Try to make amends so it will never end
You don't care about it, you don't care about it
You don't care about it, you don't care about it
but can't you see, it's a mystery
06 Tragedy (02:00)
Tragedy oh oh oh tragedy
Your your your such a tragedy
Oh oh oh tragedy
But don't ever let go oh no
Injury oh oh oh injury
You you you caused me
Injury oh oh oh injury
But don't ever let go oh no
Loading comments slowly
